Crab Chowder

A one-line cross-reference, which means everything depends on the lobster chowder recipe printed just above it in the Soups chapter. What follows applies to that method as it behaves with crab.

• Find the base recipe firstThis line is unusable on its own; you need Lowney's lobster chowder, which in a Boston book of this date is most likely a milk chowder rather than a tomato one. Read it through before shopping so you know how much shellfish, milk and cracker you need.
• Substituting by weight, not by animalSwap crab for lobster gram for gram of picked meat, not shell for shell. A pound of picked meat takes three or four 1 1/4-lb lobsters, or anywhere from about 4 to 7 lb of whole crab depending on species.
• Which crabNothing in the entry specifies a crab; a Boston household of this date would probably have used locally landed hard-shell crab, picked at home. Pasteurized lump or claw meat in tubs works and is far quicker; drain it and pick through for shell and cartilage, since fragments are the usual failure in crab soup.
• Crab is more fragile than lobsterLobster meat tolerates a few minutes of simmering; crab shreds and turns cottony. Fold it in at the end, off direct heat, and hold the pot below a simmer only long enough to warm it through -- two to three minutes.
• Keeping the milk from curdlingShellfish liquor and milk break easily. Heat the milk separately and combine gently, keep the pot under 180F, and salt at the end rather than at the start.
• Common crackersChowders of this period are typically thickened with split, milk-soaked common crackers, a thick, dry New England biscuit; check what the lobster chowder itself calls for. Water crackers or unsalted oyster crackers are the nearest substitute; saltines will dissolve into paste and add too much salt.
• YieldA chowder built on a pound of picked crab and the usual quart or so of milk serves four to six as a first course, three as a supper dish. It does not reheat well; the meat coarsens.